


lost inside a lonely life

by runthemredlightsbabe



Series: pieces [6]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, Language of Flowers, M/M, Self-Destruction, have you ever seen somebody ruin their own life?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 18:35:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10519485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runthemredlightsbabe/pseuds/runthemredlightsbabe
Summary: “I asked him. I told him. I said that you should stay with me. With my mom. We didn’t have a whole lot, Akaashi, but we could’ve been your family. You could've been safe." Yamaguchi has tears in his eyes, fresh ones. They make Akaashi dizzy. And nauseous. “I worried about you every night. Every night I thought about it. Did you eat, did you sleep? Was your brother there, or did he leave you alone all night? Were you warm enough? Did you have clothes to wear? I… I was so petrified that one day, I was going to go to school, and you’d just disappear.”“Tadashi,” Akaashi murmurs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Half-way done, I can't believe it.  
> As always, thank you to everyone who has been reading this crazy series. I'm in love with all of you, and y'all really never fail to inspire me.  
> Please check out my friend, [crowswillfly](http://crowswillfly.tumblr.com/), she writes lots of lovely stuff for the haikyuu fandom and she is so amazing and awesome! She made a really cool playlist, which you can find on [8tracks](https://8tracks.com/skihale/pieces) or [youtube!](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2UINVOA5TkdluzDa1oJ2RbL1SQR7psNp)
> 
> !!!!IMPORTANT: There is talk of self-harm at the very end! Please keep yourself safe!!!!!
> 
> Title credit to "Spirits" by the Strumbellas.

Sometimes worlds shatter all at the same time.

Akaashi doesn’t know anything is wrong until he opens his front door and Kenma attacks him like a frightened ghost, eyes all red and wrong. They let out a choking gasp, grab him by the neck, pull him close enough to feel their fluttering heartbeat.

“Kenma?” He says as their unbalanced weight threatens to drag him to the floor. “Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

“Oikawa and Yamaguchi,” They whisper, face pressed into his collarbone. “Please, Akaashi. You have to stop them.”

 

So it goes something like this.

For a long time, it was just Oikawa and Akaashi. For ever and ever, just him and his brother. They lived in an old factory on the outskirts of the city. It was one of those rice-packaging factories that were all the rage until the economy went bad. The building moaned at night, and it gave Oikawa nightmares, so they went a few days or maybe weeks without meals and paid for a shack apartment in Ikebukuro. The walls were stained and the ceilings leaked and everywhere there was dust and old, bad memories, but it was cheap and there was a radiator.

His fourth or fifth year in Ikebukuro, Akaashi met Yamaguchi and Nishinoya.

He had been attending a local junior high (every few days, sometimes he’d go for weeks without showing up, but what could the school do? It had seen hundreds of kids like him come and go, so his teachers kept their heads down and passed his attendance sheet to the left) so he knew who they were. Nishinoya was loud and anxious and busy. Yamaguchi was sort of thin and nervous and shy. He didn’t talk to them because he had his brother and it was just Akaashi and Oikawa forever and ever.

But the thing about Nishinoya is he has color in his veins. He was made for painting, bred for painting, born to color in the world.

In particular, he liked tagging, which, as Akaashi was to learn, is the code word for graffiti. Years later, Nishinoya’s the Banksy of Tokyo, people call him _Tokumei,_ he is the millennials’ star. His pieces are political and satirical and beautiful and Akaashi’s been through his share of tracing and rigging and outlining and standing guard.

But back then, when Akaashi was fifteen, Noya was an idiot and Yamaguchi his resigned anchor. Tagging was new, Noya was thoughtless, Yamaguchi was terrified to lose his only friend.

Long story short, some bad people caught Noya tagging their hide-out.

Akaashi had found them (he had just finished a job, he remembers with a vivid sort of grimness, how sick and hollowed out he felt, how much his knees felt like gelatin) cornered against an alley wall. He’d wanted to walk by, had been so close to brushing past, when he saw the look in Yamaguchi’s eyes, that big-eyed, doe-eyed, wide-eyed terror, and saw the after-image of his brother, of Oikawa on the floor all gross and gaping.

He hadn’t been able to help himself.

The bad people knew him through the grapevine, the way all underground criminals knew all the underground kids like Akaashi, and they made him a deal.

Akaashi had never told. He’d never explained what he’d sold in exchange for Noya and Yamaguchi’s lives, but they were his first friends anyway.

(it was worth it, in the end, even if Akaashi can still taste the things that were done to him)

It took them an indefinite amount of time to figure out that Akaashi didn’t have parents. He’s not sure exactly when it was that they put it all together, all the skipping school and worn-down shoes and dirty hair and blank lunches, but then it was bad because they wanted to see and know. They wanted into a space Akaashi didn’t know how to open. He couldn’t bring them home, he knew that, knew somehow with his sixth sense that it would mean bad things, that he would lose the only family he’d ever had, so he introduced them to Oikawa, but never brought them home.

Nishinoya and Yamaguchi got to know Oikawa, but they were never friends. This didn’t bother Akaashi, because he wasn’t really friends with Oikawa’s friends, either.

He didn’t realize that there was a reason, that there was a Thing™, a tension, a _friction_ , this thing between his brother and his friends until one day, sort of out of the blue, Yamaguchi asked,

“Do you like living with your brother, Akaashi?”

They were lying together on Nishinoya’s bed, all three of them. This is often how it went, because Akaashi was very thin and very cold, so they piled him in between. Nishinoya who was always a few degrees hotter than normal, he called it his “spark”, and Yamaguchi, who smelled like clean laundry and cinnamon.

And Akaashi had sighed because this was not the first time. It was not even the seven millionth time, because they were _always_ asking. He begged them not to tell their parents, and they never did, but they always _asked._

“Yes, I like living with my brother. He’s the only family I have.” His standard answer.

“But it’s not good for you.” Not the standard response.

He’d sat up, looked at Yamaguchi. “What do you mean.”

“It’s not healthy for you,” Nishinoya said, in his way. “Not good. You’re a kid. You should live in a house with food and parents.”

“I have a house. I have food. I have my brother,” Akaashi’s voice had cracked. “Don’t talk about it anymore.”

So they hadn’t. But Akaashi had noticed after that, the way they looked at his brother with angry eyes.

Then they got older, the three of them, and he stopped noticing the anger around the time he stopped seeing a kid in the mirror, when Oikawa called him a “looker” and attacked his hair with a brush, explained what protective sex meant and how to say ‘no’. (Akaashi nodded studiously, and then threw up in the bathroom.)

Tinto de Cuervos came around, this miracle that none of them could really explain, and everything turned around, and Akaashi bought an apartment with his own money, and Oikawa bought a nicer apartment with his own money, and then Kageyama showed up at Akaashi’s door and then everything turned around _again_ because holy shit, he had a kid to take care of.

He supposes that the anger had never gone away, though. His two friends and his brother and their thing.

 

Sometimes, worlds fall apart at the same time, and sometimes, it's just a chain reaction.

He walks into Tinto de Cuervos.

Oikawa and Yamaguchi are not yelling or screaming or throwing things.

The office is silent.

Iwaizumi is there, big, strong Iwaizumi. He has been Oikawa’s best friend, his guardian, he loves Oikawa in a way that is fierce and strong and very big. He has Akaashi’s brother hooked under his shoulder, ruffling his hair. Oikawa is hunched, quiet. Iwaizumi looks up, stares at Akaashi. Gives him a long, indecipherably angry look. Akaashi’s brother does not look up at him. They have not spoken since Akaashi yelled at him, nearly a week ago. This does not sit well.

Akaashi moves on.

Yamaguchi is in his booth with Nishinoya, and Akaashi is startled enough by this to take a breath. Noya looks too, but it is far less indecipherable. There is a quiet, dignified rage in his eyes.

Yamaguchi hugs him.

“Keiji,” He says, and there are tears in his voice. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Noya grumbles. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No, I… I said some really horrible things,” Tadashi stares at his fingernails. They’re short and smudged. “To Oikawa. I’m sorry, Akaashi. I shouldn’t have.”

“What happened?” Akaashi says. “Kenma was freaked out.”  
He’d left them at his apartment, buried under his comforter with Briefcase chewing at their hair.

“Oikawa came looking for you. He was…”

“Fucking tabled,” Nishinoya inserts.

“...A little intoxicated,” Tadashi says, a bit more kindly. “Anyway, I guess you guys had a fight? He kept saying that he was sorry and crying a lot. He said that he missed you and felt bad and a bunch of other stuff. He was a mess.”

“And you started yelling?”

“Well, yeah,” Tadashi brushes a bit of hazel hair out of his eyes. “I got mad.”

Akaashi blinks. Tadashi Yamaguchi doesn’t get mad. Tadashi Yamaguchi is the kindest person he knows. “At Oikawa?”

Yamaguchi raises an eyebrow. “Seriously, Akaashi? I mean, I know he’s your brother and all, but you have to see it.”

“See what?”

Yamaguchi opens his mouth, but it’s Nishinoya who answers. “Oikawa ruined your life, Rojo.”

Akaashi lets out a half-laugh. “Maybe with his terrible taste in movies.”

“No, Akaashi, don’t-” Yamaguchi takes a deep breath, looks away. Summoning his courage. Akaashi’s stomach sinks. “Just listen for a second, okay?”

“I am listening.”

“No, you’re not, you’re trying to avoid it, Akaashi, look you have to-”

“Do what, Tadashi, what do I have to do? What is it exactly that you’re going to tell me that I don’t already-”’

“You can’t see it because he’s your family, but I have been friends with you for eleven years, Akaashi, I know you, I have watched the two of you for long enough to know-”

“Know that whatever you’re about to say is none of your goddamn business, Yamaguchi, what the fuck is this, some sort of-”

“-would you just listen, Akaashi-”

“-and I don’t think it’s-”

“-Akaashi, look,-”

“-your family, he’s mine, and whatever-”

“AKAASHI!” Nishinoya shouts. “SHUT UP FOR _THREE SECONDS_ AND LET HIM SAY HIS THING, FOR FUCKS’ SAKE.”

Akaashi is silent.

“Your brother kept you with him because he was selfish,” Tadashi says, and there is kindness in his voice, a hesitation, but it overlaps with steeled determination. “He kept you like… like a dog or something, because he was scared of being lonely, and he made… he made you lose everything. You were the smartest kid in our class, ya know? But you were never in school. You stayed with your brother and you worked instead of getting the education you deserved.”

“You could have gone to college.” Nishinoya supplements, and it is a rare day that he is serious, but there is no flashing spark in his eyes. “Any university would have taken you.”

“But you couldn’t.” Yamaguchi continues. “Your brother kept you in that shitty apartment. I know you loved him, Akaashi, but you should have been with a family. You should have been somewhere safe. I mean, he sold drugs, Akaashi. To keep you in clothes. To keep you fed. Do you know how dangerous that was? He could have died. You could have died in his stead. That’s no place for a kid, Keiji, can’t you see that? He should have given you away.”

“He loved me.”

“He should have given you away _because_ he loved you.” Tadashi says, ever so softly.

“Oikawa knew,” Nishinoya takes over, vehemently. “That keeping you was fucking selfish, and that it would ruin every goddamn shot you’ve ever had at a better life, but he did it anyway. He kept you, and we had to go ahead and watch him hurt you.”

“I watched you lose every single time because you didn’t have the money or the food or the resources,” Tadashi whispers. “I watched him ruin your life, Akaashi. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see what you’ve lost? You were so selfless, you would’ve given everything for him.”

Akaashi doesn’t know quite how to react. He opens his mouth, closes it. Tries to think of something funny to say. Tadashi stares at him with dark skin and a freckled face and betrayer’s brown eyes. Nishinoya is looking at his shoes.

“Oikawa ruined my life,” He says, and in it he hears the same strain of deja vu incredulity. _You think_  Koutarou _is doing this to me?_ “My brother should have left me. Keeping me was selfish.”

“I asked him. I told him. I said that you should stay with me. With my mom. We didn’t have a whole lot, Akaashi, but we could’ve been your family. You could have been safe.” Yamaguchi has tears in his eyes, fresh ones. They make Akaashi dizzy. And nauseous. “I worried about you every night. Every night I thought about it. Did you eat, did you sleep? Was your brother there, or did he leave you alone all night? Were you warm enough? Did you have clothes to wear? I… I was so petrified that one day, I was going to go to school, and you’d just disappear.”

“Tadashi,” Akaashi murmurs.

“It was so hard, Keiji. We kept it a secret, we never told anyone. But now, I mean… I look at you and think, _I should have said something. I should have_ done _something._ But that wasn’t my responsibility. I was just a kid, too. We were _fourteen_. You were fourteen and living off of scraps. It makes me so... angry to think about. _So_ angry. So when I heard him crying for you, all drunk and immature and selfish, I just… I snapped. He has no right to you, Akaashi. No fucking right to say that you hurt him.”

Akaashi can see it like some old-fashioned recording, Oikawa with his hair all down and his glasses missing, wearing a day-old shirt that didn’t fit him right. Crying. Reaching out for his brother. Looking for Akaashi. Scared, lonely, miserable, sick. Begging, pleading with Tadashi. Eleven and scared all over again.

It makes his stomach roll over.

Akaashi loves his brother more than anything in this world. Loves him unconditionally. Feels, like a raw, raw wound, the aching hurt of fighting with him. He knows Oikawa as well as himself, knows every insecurity, every chink in his polished armor. Knows how much it must have killed him to look kind, scared Tadashi in the face, begged, pleaded, cried for Akaashi. To be turned away. To be attacked, unprepared, vulnerable. Scared and lonely and apocalyptically apologetic. Oikawa isn’t sure of himself. Beneath his rugged confidence, there is nothing but constant indecision. Every mistake is a mistake on his life, he takes it like a battlescar, heavy and bruised, keeps it and scratches it open. To hear from the kindest boy this side of Tokyo that he is wrong, that he is selfish, that he has ruined the one thing in his life he has always been confident about, the one thing he’s always had, would be life-destroying.

The consequence shatters paper-thin.

“Fuck,” He swears, and Tadashi flinches. “ _Fuck_ , Tadashi. Fuck.” He puts his hand to his mouth, bites down on the meat of his palm, breathes through it. “Fuck. You- fuck.”

“I’m sorry, Akaashi,” Tadashi says. “But I couldn’t help it. He was making such a-”

“He was making a scene because he was _scared_ ,” Akaashi means for it to come out steady, but he shouts instead. Tadashi looks away. Noya’s mouth parts. “He was terrified, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t- he was being-” Akaashi grapples with his words, struggles and struggles. “He was _the best thing to happen to me_. He was my- my lucky fucking break. I got him, and I… my world _changed_.”

“Akaashi, don’t get-”

“No,” Akaashi cuts Noya off. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand, and you will never understand. You had a _family_. You had support. Both of you. You had your moms and your aunts and your uncles and cousins. Nishinoya, you had five other brothers and sisters. All I ever had was Oikawa.”

“We know, that’s why we’re-”

“Tadashi, you need to shut the fuck up before I lose it,” Keiji warns, because he can feel it, teetering. Rage. “Shut the fuck up, for once in your goddamn life.”

There is silence.

“I-I _needed_ my brother. Without him, I… without each… we wouldn’t have made it. Don’t you- don't you _get_ it? I never had anyone, and then... then there was this _one_ person in my life I could trust. If someone had taken him away from me, I-" he stumbles. "I would have killed myself.”

More silence. Shocked silence.

“That’s what you don’t get. It’s what you will never get because you lived a nice life. You had a _good life_. You had it good. I had it shit. I had- I had nothing, _nothing_ fucking bottom-of-the-barrel _nothing_ until I was nine years old. You don’t, you- you don't get to tell me that it was hard for you, watching and worrying. It was hard for you? _FOR YOU_? Do you know what my brother did to _keep us alive_? Do you know what I had to-” He cus off, choked. “It’s the problem with you fucking people. None of you understand. None of you _fucking get it_. Oikawa wasn’t selfish. He was the only thing I had _left_. I know all about you. Both of you. Every inch of you. And let me tell you, Oikawa isn’t the one who was _fucking selfish for keeping me_. You- How dare you be angry. How dare you get angry at my brother for doing something good. Fuck you. Fuck you and your fucking silver spoon. You want to talk about selfish? You want to talk about someone being selfish? Nishinoya, I have spent the last eleven years picking up after you. And Tadashi, I am _always there for you_. _Always._ Every fucking hour of every fucking day, I have been there. I listen to you whine and complain about a stupid fucking crush and your stupid fucking hair. I make sure Noya isn’t put in fucking jail. _I’m_ the one who with the rope around their neck because all of you fucking freaks can’t give me a goddamn break. You don’t get to tell me what ruined my life, Yamaguchi, _I am perfectly aware of what ruined my life_.”

 

He doesn’t remember leaving. He doesn’t remember much of anything, not until he’s half-way through the flower-shop and Kuroo is yelling.

Akaashi finds Bokuto in among the flowers and the fronds and the growing things.

“Akaashi!” He says, and he drops the seeds. They scatter on the concrete floor. “Hey!”

“Please,” Keiji says, and his voice is so small. “Please take me away from here.”

 

They go out for coffee.

Bokuto talks. Stares out the window, into the grainy sky, talks. About flowers and seeds and growing things. Hinata’s new bike and Kuroo’s date with Kenma. The way Tsukishima likes to count his steps and listen to music when they’re eating dinner together. About the raw egg war they have with their neighbors. About the time he went to America with Kuroo and saw New York City, how the lights opened up and how the people spoke too fast and were beautiful and rude.

Akaashi listens, sort of. He listens to the way Bokuto stumbles over run-on sentences, the fragments that he leaves like tiny pieces in between phrases, the way he bites his lip when he can’t remember a word, or glue all of his verbs and nouns together so that the tenses turn to wires. He listens to the way Bokuto breathes, deep and easy, from his lungs to his mouth.

He listens and learns to breathe again.

 

They go for a walk.

Not far, just up and along the city streets, down tiny, cramped alleyways and across wide, paved intersections. Bokuto half-skips, close enough to Akaashi that every few steps, their hands will brush and Keiji will bite down on his tongue.

They pass a few Korean stores, and Bokuto reads off the names to Akaashi and laughs when Keiji stumbles on the repetition.

“Have you ever gone to Korea?” Akaashi asks, curiously.

“Oh yeah, all the time when I was little. That’s where my grandparents lived.”

“What’s it like?”

“Korea? Well, the big cities aren’t that different from Tokyo. We had to fly in to Seoul, and I mean, New York is definitely not anything like Tokyo, but Seoul and Tokyo kinda have the same feeling, ya know? Like, they’re saying “hi”, but they’re too busy to really stop and give a real welcome. But they are welcoming. New York’s a lot scarier. I mean, it was super beautiful, but it’s kinda closed off. It doesn’t look at you and think “hello”, it looks at you and waits to see what you’ll do.”

Akaashi has no idea what that means. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Oh, well, like…” Bokuto hmms to himself, thinking. “Well, I mean, if Oikawa is Seoul and uhhh, Yamaguchi is Tokyo, then you’re New York.”

“What, rude, dirty and mean?” Akaashi says, and it comes out light, but it sort of hurts on the inside.

“No! God no, ‘Kaashi! Don’t say those things about yourself,” Bokuto flaps his hands. “I meant, special. Wary and sort of cautious, but once someone you know, pokes around and peels a layer or two off, really kind and warm and forgiving. I mean, that’s what I remember about New York the most, how nice it was. There were a thousand different cultures jumbled up in one city and it was kind to all of them. Even if they weren’t so kind back. Once you proved yourself, New York would take anyone in and treat them just right.”

They’ve stopped walking, and Bokuto stands half in and out of a building’s shadow. It turns his face to shadow and sun, and he looks so incredibly beautiful that it _hurts_ , everything _hurts_. He touches Akaashi’s face with the trace of his knuckles, tips his head forward.

“Hey, ‘kaashi!” He says with alarm. “You’re crying!”

And Keiji is crying, just a little bit. He wipes at his eyes, and his fingers come away smudged with eyeliner.

“Ahh!” Bokuto yowls, pointing at his fingers. “I made you mess up your make-up! Oh god, I’m so sorry, Akaashi! You’re not a city! You’re a person! You’re Akaashi. You’re beautiful and funny and nice and oh, please don’t cry and I’m so sorry, I always ruin these things, we were having such a nice time, oh god, why…” He trails off with a low, upset moan, and buries his face in his hands.

“It’s okay, Bokuto,” Akaashi pats him on the back. “I’m alright.”

“But you’re _crying_ ,” Bokuto hollers. “Ahhhhhh!!!”

“I’m not crying anymore, Bokuto, no, don’t sit down, Bokuto! No! Oh god-” Akaashi tugs in vain at Bokuto’s shirt, but all his efforts only end up pulling him down on top of Bokuto as the eclectic boy slides to the ground. Their foreheads knock together a little and Bokuto starts whining like a petulant child. There are people staring at them, muttering. Akaashi should be mortified. Instead, to his own disbelief, he starts laughing.

“‘Kaashi! Don’t laugh! It’s not funny, I’m so sorry, hey, _stop laughing, I’m trying to apologize to you_ \- Ow! You’re sitting on my hand, this is a mess, god, there are people staring, and oh gosh, your makeup, _don’t wipe at it_ , you’re making it worse, ugh, god, I’m just so- stop, no, _why are you laughing_?”

There are more people looking at them now, strangers pausing to take in the scene; the eclectic kid and the skeleton boy, crumpled into each other like cloth.

Bokuto is staring at him like he’s lost his head, and maybe he has, but he feels so strangely light, like he hasn’t felt in a million years and Bokuto called him _beautiful_ and the sun is shining.

Bokuto buries himself in a bewildered sulk.

“Bokuto,” Akaashi says, gently. “It’s okay.”

But the boy with the strange hair turns his head away, and Akaashi realizes that Bokuto is genuinely upset and that he should probably reassure him.

So he tries again. He takes Bokuto’s hands, brings them up to his face and says, “Look, I’m okay. See?”

Bokuto looks with a meandering sort of pout on his face. “But you were crying.”

“You said something that made me happy.”

“You were crying!”

“They were happy tears.”

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"I know. I'm okay, though."

“You sure?” Bokuto says, shifting the weight in his hands to cradle Akaashi’s face.

“I’m certain.”

“Well, geez, ‘Kaashi, don’t do that! You really scared me!” Bokuto says, and cards his fingers through Akaashi’s hair. “I thought you were sad!”

“I was. This morning. I was really, really upset. I was scared and sad. That’s why I came to find you.”

“You came to find me,” Bokuto says so quietly. His eyes shine. With hope and this awful sort of happiness that makes all the rot in Akaashi _hurt._

“Because you would make it go away,” Akaashi gives him a smile. It’s small. “I knew you would make it go away. You make me happy, Koutarou.” And there it is, that _Koutarou._

“God,” Bokuto moans, pressing their foreheads together. “You are so incredible.”

They are so close. Akaashi can see every single freckle, every little scar, every bit of golden, sunny tan skin. He can feel Bokuto’s heat, feel it, luxuriate in it, feel tremors in his bones. He wreathes his hands through Bokuto’s hair and lets his mouth part.

They are so close.

Bokuto leans, he twists, long, soft white and gray eyelashes fluttering as he sighs, moves into Akaashi’s space until they are sharing breath and Akaashi can feel Bokuto’s heart, pounding like a kettledrum, in his chest. He can feel Bokuto breathe, feel it lift in his own lungs.

So close.

“Koutarou,” He whispers, almost involuntary. “Please.”

 

They don’t kiss.

They… they don’t.

Bokuto pulls away at the very last second.

“Akaashi,” He says. “You’re crying.”

He looks sad.

Akaashi's heart breaks at the count of three. 

“I know.”

 

Bokuto walks him home. They linger outside Keiji’s apartment, and Bokuto takes his hands, kisses the tips of his fingers. Akaashi watches with swollen eyes. 

“I had a nice time,” Bokuto says, and he means it.

“Me too,” Akaashi says, and he means it, too.

“It’s going to be alright.”

 _It won’t,_ Akaashi thinks, and sees his brother, his best friends. _I don’t think it’s ever going to be alright again._ “Thank you.”

Bokuto looks like he wants to say something else. Instead, he sticks his hand in his ugly pastel sweatshirt pocket, and pulls out a handful of weeds.

Not… weeds, Akaashi recognizes. Clover flowers, white and furry, wilted and resiliently bright. “If you ever need… ya know. Anything. I’ll be around. I promise, okay?”

The skeleton boy takes the flowers. They’re soft. “Okay.”

The eclectic boy with strange hair fidgets with his clothes, staring at Akaashi. Very suddenly, as if taken by a whim, he leans down and presses a gentle kiss to Akaashi’s forehead.

“See ya, 'Kaashi,” He whispers softly, and disappears.

 

Kenma is gone. Akaashi puts the flowers on his desk, and goes into the bathroom.

He spends a lot of time staring at himself in the mirror that night. Takes off his clothes, looks at his veins. Traces the bruises like a map. Runs his fingers down scars, presses red and angry skin until it goes numb. Closes his hands around his neck. Places his fingers on the outlines of fingertips burned into his thighs, his hips, his ribs. He scratches at them until they are raw.

There is a razor above the sink.

He puts three little red lines into his thighs. Watches with mild fascination as they bubble and spill in his reflection.

They run red.

Eventually, he puts his fist through his reflection, and goes to bed bleeding.

**Author's Note:**

> yike.net
> 
> come yell at me on [tumblr!](http://iamtherabbitwhisperer.tumblr.com/) and talk to me about Bokuaka!


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